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Don Filcek; 2 Timothy 1:8-14 Guardians of the Gospel
Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches with his series of Second Timothy, Faithful to the End. Let's listen in.
Good morning.
Welcome to Recast Church. As Ben said, I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here. And I'm really glad to be together here with all of you this morning. I hope you're glad to be here as well. I am really grateful that I've had the privilege of serving at a church with so much care and love for each other.
And I mean that with sincerity. I've seen that over the years. We do love and serve each other and care for each other well here. I'm grateful for the love and faith I see growing here toward God as well.
Not just loving each other, but loving God well. I love to see community developing. I see many of you serving each other well. And I would point out, of course, I know, and most of you know, we're not a perfect church, but we are His church.
Amen?
We are His. Jesus Christ is our leader. The gospel is our message. The word is our steadfast guide, and the eternal kingdom of Jesus is our future. So I'm really excited about that, and we're starting our way through the book of 2 Timothy.
And I'm going a bit slower. I don't know if you've noticed that. I don't know. Those of you that have been around here for a while probably noticed those kinds of trends. But we're taking off smaller chunks.
And it's smaller chunks than I frequently do. I often take off large chunks and paragraphs to study each week, and we end up with what I would call a survey, like when we went through Romans. Some people I know, some pastors I know did Romans and 255 sermons, and I think I did it in 40.
So we have a tendency to survey some books. But God has me in a season of slowing down and savoring. Any of you ever go through a season like that, where it's just kind of like God just says, like, slow down, take your time?
And even in my personal time, He has me reading through the Bible in two years. I usually read the Bible every year, but I'm reading it a little slower and enjoying kind of like dissecting it and letting it really wash over me in a little bit of a slower pace.
And this letter is the last inspired letter written by the Apostle Paul, likely months, most scholars believe months, and maybe not even quite a year before he was executed. This letter serves to show us his words of passing along the ministry to the next generation.
So he's writing to Timothy, Paul writing to Timothy, the Apostle Paul writing to his protege, and Paul has been a mentor to Timothy for about 16 years of ministry as of the writing of this, and now he's encouraging this young man to carry on the ministry.
But what is Timothy supposed to carry on? What is it that is really the heartbeat of Paul that he wants to be sure to invest in this young man moving forward? And I've entitled this message, Guardians of the Gospel, not Guardians of the Galaxy, of course, but Guardians of the Gospel, because this is the fundamental and first order of business for the Apostle Paul.
He knows that the church will rise or fall based on her commitment to the glorious and majestic and amazing and almost inconceivable glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so our text is one big defense of gospel centrality, one big defense of gospel centrality.
Yes, there will be the temptation to be ashamed of the gospel. The proclamation of the gospel will cause persecution. But the gospel is the very plan of God to save us, right? The gospel is the very plan of God to deal with death.
The gospel is the sound word, the beautiful, good deposit of God that He has entrusted to His people, and yes, even the church. And the gospel has been entrusted to us. We the church are the guardians of the gospel.
We are entrusted with this amazing remedy that all of humanity needs in order to be made right and well. Paul knew that Christians like Timothy would be tempted to skip out on the gospel out of embarrassment or fear of suffering.
And so Paul centers the future of the church and the next generation on the necessity of the good news of Jesus Christ. Without the gospel, church, we have nothing. Without the gospel, we have nothing of lasting significance to offer to the world.
And without offering the gospel, I would suggest to you we're not even a church. If we're not offering the gospel, we're not even a church. Paul wants to speak into each and every heart here the centrality of the gospel message in our lives and in our ministries.
The only way of rescuing is through the gospel. The only way for the church to grow is through the gospel. And for this reason, we all must be guardians of the gospel. So let's open your Bibles or your scripture journals or your devices to 2 Timothy 1, verses 8 through 14.
Again, it's 2 Timothy 1, verses 8 through 14, recast. We're going to read this. This is God's holy word and what he desires to communicate to us. I encourage you to follow along. Give it your respect by giving it your attention here for the coming minute or two.
Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do.
But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. Let's pray. Father, what a privilege it is that you use us, that you have first and foremost shared this glorious truth that I believe that the vast majority of us are in this room right now because of the gospel, because whether it was in our youth or in our middle age or even later in life, you have brought near to us the truth that has saved our souls, the glorious cross and empty tomb of Jesus Christ, sacrificed himself for our sake and for our sins, taking the punishment on himself, and then rising again as the victor over death, that sin and death, our greatest enemies, are resolved in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, are fixed by our hero.
And we rejoice in that. But Father, I just pray that you would help us to continue to guard that as the center. So many things war in our hearts for that central position. Even within churches, it can become muddied and foggy and misty and we can start to corrupt the gospel with just ideas of going out and feeding people food or going out and doing a missions trip to build a new building or to...
So many things that the world will tell us is the good news. There's technology. People will tell you good news. There's politics. People will tell you good news. That's laughable. All different kinds of things that people trust as their good news, and we know that the only hope that we have for eternity and for the future and for reconciliation with you is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Father, I pray that you would help that to remain central. And not just central but lived, not just believed and not just given mental assent, but that it would impact our lives, Father, that we would live in different ways from Monday through Saturday because the gospel is true and has gripped our lives and that we would praise now and sing your praises out of hearts that are fueled with love because of the great and awesome gospel truth.
Father, I pray that even in this message, that as we have an opportunity to know the gospel better, to talk about it and to talk about guarding it and presenting it and declaring it, Father, that you might, that this message itself through the power of your spirit might result in more in your kingdom as some of us catch fire and recognize the glorious centrality of the gospel and go out and share it with others.
But now I pray that you would help us to just worship you in gladness for this glorious gift that you've given to us through your son, Jesus Christ, and it's in his name that I pray.
Amen. All right.
Well, make yourself comfortable and keep your ribos open to 2 Timothy 1 8 -14. That'd be good for you to have that on your lap and open so that you can follow along and see what I'm talking about is coming from God's word.
According to a Barna poll, about 20 of non-Christians, it's 20 of non-Christians polled, view the church in a positive way. So 20 of non-Christians view the church in a positive way. Well, of course, the converse of that is concerning, but that doesn't surprise me that much and it's really not super alarming.
I'm never super discouraged by statistics showing that the world doesn't like the church. I think Paul, John, and Peter all mentioned things about persecution and people not liking us and even Jesus Christ himself was not liked very much by the end, right?
You're in good company if you're not liked by those who don't understand faith and don't really hold to the same values. But where I start to get concerned is when the polls start to roll in about what people think the church is all about.
That's our message. That's what we're communicating or at least what they think they hear from us and that's concerning. My ears perk up because people are now telling what they think the church is all about when they're answering this poll and more than 50 of non-Christians polled by Barna say that the church is known for what they are against.
We're known for what we're against. The moralism of the church has been a theme for decades now of American Christianity,.
Right?
Act like us, behave like us, respond like us, hate the things that we hate and we'll welcome you. The majority of the world out there thinks that what you are doing here this morning, what's happening in the walls.
They're not here.
They're not in a church.
They're mowing their lawn.
They're doing their shopping. They're doing other things. What they think is happening here is fundamentally about rules and laws. That's what they think. That we're in here judging them and coming up with new ways to be against them.
And how will they know any difference if we don't tell them? How will they know what we believe? How will they know the gospel? How will they know the love of Christ expressed to them if we don't share it?
Here in our passage, Paul seeks to center Timothy and the next generation of the church on the one thing we ought to be known for. When people hear the church and think about the church, they should at least know what they're rejecting, right?
They at least ought to know the glory and the beauty of the gospel. Long before they know what we are against, they ought to know emphatically what we are.
For.
I think we cannot be said to be excellent guardians of the gospel, as the passage is going to call us into, if our neighbors and coworkers and friends would define us by what we are against. Our outline this morning is this.
Number one, don't be ashamed of the gospel. That's verse 8. Also in verse 8 comes a second point, suffer for the gospel. The third is know the gospel, verses 9 through 12. The fourth is follow the gospel and keep the gospel, depending on your translation, but I chose follow with the ESV.
Follow the gospel, verse 13, and then guard the gospel, verse 14. We start with Paul's initial command to young Timothy, don't be ashamed of the gospel. That would be a weird command if you were never tempted to be ashamed.
And this is not the only place that Paul mentions, by the way, being ashamed of the gospel. In other letters he talks about it, and particularly he talks this way in the opening of the book of Romans, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.
It's clear that from Paul's perspective, he knows that all believers will at some point be tempted to be ashamed of Jesus. Now that seems like a radical statement, you say, that couldn't be me, like you would never state I'm ashamed of Jesus.
Like how many of you would raise your hand and say, I can't picture myself ever saying.
That.
I'm ashamed of Jesus. Like that's not gonna come off my lips, but let me just tell you that we're all tempted to say that in our behavior, in our actions, in the ways that our knees knock when the idea or the concept of sharing our faith with somebody, that's real, right?
The temptation to be ashamed of the message of the gospel is real. The phrase that Paul uses for the gospel in verse 8 is the testimony about our Lord. He's talking about the gospel there, but he uses the phrase, the testimony about our Lord.
This is the good news of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. And he says, you're gonna be tempted to be ashamed of that. Paul says, I'm not, but we're all gonna be tempted to be. Think about this.
In the gospel, we find a crucified Lord. Like in the gospel, we're promoting a guy who was killed in weakness. In the testimony of the life of Jesus, we find incarnation, a highly offensive notion to the Gentile philosophy of Paul's time.
In the testimony about Jesus, we find the crucifixion, an intensely shameful way for a man to die. And Jews and Gentiles couldn't agree very much about anything, but a man who died by crucifixion, they could agree, must have been cursed.
And while we find resurrection as an asset to testifying of the faith, right, like, okay, here's something that we can lean into. In Paul's time, many Jews and most all Gentiles would have laughed at the idea and been scandalized and kind of like, are you kidding me, eye roll, resurrection, who would want that?
Why would someone who has been set free from the constraints of the body and material existence and pain receptors, why would you want to come back here? Why would you even want to be embodied again? And while the shame and stigma of the gospel is different in our modern times, the burden of our message still carries a component of feeling like the dumb one in the room when you say it.
Whether it's feeling looked down on by a modern scientific world or feeling looked down on by a Gnostic world of pagan philosophy as was happening in Paul's time, the message can bring up feelings of shame and he says, I know that.
And I love how Paul tackles this head on instead of pretending that the stigma isn't there. Never addressing it, never tackling it, no, he tackles the shame that you and I feel in our chest when we sense that God is prompting us to openly share our faith with a coworker, a neighbor, a family member, or even your boss.
I could lose my job, Don, I know. God might very well prompt some of you to share with somebody you're afraid to share with today. And over this he is declaring that we will need to get past that sense of shame, past that expression of fear that naturally wells up within us if we want to heed the call of our Lord to be as ambassadors to a dark and dying world.
He knows there's a hurdle in every single heart here. He knows you have a hurdle in your heart. Raise your hand if you love Jesus. Go ahead, raise your hand. I'll give you a second, some of you. Some of you are like, I don't think he's serious.
No, raise your hand if you love Jesus. Now, I want you to re-raise it or keep it up if you believe that salvation is only found.
In him.
Now, keep your hand up if the thought of sharing that truth with others makes you just a little nervous.
You see? You see?
Maybe just a little nervous. Paul knew that the next generation of Christians was going to need to guard the gospel and fight to keep it central in our messaging, lest we water it down with the things that make us more comfortable to share with our neighbors.
How many of you know it's easier and more comfortable to offer food to the world than the gospel to the world?
It's more comfortable. It's more comfortable to offer affordable housing to people, but the gospel is hard,.
Like, it's a little more uncomfortable. I'm not against it. In the past, I've been on the board of the food pantry. It's not one or the other. It's both, but my goodness, do we not often major on the one without the other?
Because we replace the gospel with things that make us, you know, spin the PR a little bit for God. Make the world love us and like us and do some good things for them. He knew that we were going to be tempted to be ashamed of this good news that the world will not naturally understand.
To be guardians of the gospel, we must not be ashamed of the gospel. Shame comes for all of us in the same ways. We all want to be liked. We all want to fit in, but we must overcome the shame to be the followers that Christ desires us to be.
And closely aligned with this is a harsher call. So don't be ashamed. Well, that's...we got to get past the shame, and we'll see that knowing the gospel helps us with the shame. There is a solution to that in the third point, but here's the second point.
Suffer for the gospel. You also see that in verse 8. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me as prisoner, but share in the suffering for the gospel by the power of God.
You see that in the second part of verse 8. Verse 8 is written in a way that indicates that you can either be ashamed or you can suffer. You either be ashamed or you can suffer. Paul doesn't sugarcoat this at all for Timothy or for us.
Imagine that your kid calls you into their room at night and tells you that they think there's a monster under the bed. Now, imagine that there actually is. It wouldn't be very loving to tell them, just go back to sleep, okay?
But you would want to...you would want to solve that or address it. Paul gives the straight sauce to Timothy here. He says, get past your fears and shame and get sharing. And when you do, you will suffer and be persecuted for the gospel.
He doesn't say here, stop being a baby. Nothing bad is going to happen. You have unwarranted concerns. The world's not going to really hate you for this. You just think that. You're believing lies in your mind that the world might persecute you for this.
He doesn't go there. He does not give false...a false sense of security here. If you share the gospel, God's just going to make everybody love you. Nobody would ever imprison you for your faith. No one ever put you to death for your faith.
When, in fact, Paul is in prison and about to be put to death for his faith, and he's still saying this, yes, I'm in prison. Don't be ashamed of me. It's just like...just like they did to Christ, remember?
He was held by the soldiers as well, imprisoned for the night, and then killed the next day. It's tempting to contextually water all of this down. And it's also tempting for pastors to just light you all up, light us all up for being so stupid as to worry that someone might not like us if we share our faith, and this is where we're like, okay, well, people are being persecuted out there in the world, and some people are giving their lives.
You know, it'd be easy to lean in on that side of things, but I really believe that often what I've heard preached when it comes to evangelism is arrogant and mildly unhelpful. Because what I think all of us need to be left to see in this passage is that God knows it is going to cost you something, and He doesn't care what the value is on that.
He's not saying, well, great that some give their lives, some give their blood, some do this, but all you're called to is a little shame. All you're called to is a potential loss of a friendship, or your brother might not want to come over to your house on Thanksgiving if you share one more time, right?
He's not putting that on a scale and going, oh, yeah, you don't have anything to give.
Up.
No, He's concerned, and He's grateful when you're willing to lean into that shame. He's grateful when you're willing to lean into whatever persecution you might receive for this just to share it. Are you getting what I'm saying in that?
So often I've heard this as a comparison game, like it's a game, right? It's a game, and those over in India who are dying for their faith, and those in Indonesia,.
They're winning the game.
They're doing it right, and we are over here just kind of like, oh, well, I don't want to compare you to India or Indonesia. I want to compare you to the truth of God's Word that's telling us to not be ashamed and be ready to suffer.
That's the call. That's the call to all Christians. Are you hearing it? Are you seeing it? Is that coming from me, or is that coming from the Word? It's coming from the Bible, isn't it? You see it in here?
He knows. He knows you.
He knows your circumstances. He knows what it means. He knows the current state of the American culture, and He knows what it means that He has called you to proclaim the gospel. He knows your relationships.
He knows your neighbors. He knows your workers, your coworkers. He knows your family.
He knows your boss.
He knows the company that you work for, and He says, be ready to suffer and don't be ashamed. Be ready to suffer and don't be ashamed of the gospel.
Do you hear it?
He knows what it will cost you, and it's not a game at all. Paul gave his life. You might have to give up some friendships or some relationships. You might have to give some clout. In some extreme cases, you might be called to surrender your job.
Maybe in 50 years, Christians in America will again be sowing the gospel with our blood once again. No, that's not our calling right now, right? That's not likely, but it could be coming for us. We don't know, but Paul is a prisoner for Christ, acknowledges that the power to suffer loss for the gospel comes from God.
We don't pick our losses, church. Our call is to declare the good testimony about our Lord with bold confidence. Guarding the gospel requires that we are ready and willing to suffer for the gospel, whatever that loss might be.
In support of a willingness to suffer for the gospel and helping us to lean into that, Paul wants to remind Timothy of the glorious nature of the good news, and so he encourages us here in verses 9 through 12, kind of the bulk of the passage, to know the gospel.
He gives us a refresher. On what basis should you not be ashamed, and on what basis should you suffer? Because of this glorious truth. Let's rehearse it, he says. In telling Timothy and us to not be ashamed of the gospel and to suffer for it, Paul gives a beautiful description of the gospel as motivation for our shameless boldness that even risks suffering.
Way too many risks have been undertaken for foolish endeavors. A hold my beer moment is often a risk for something stupid, right? That's why we laugh at it. Hold my beer usually results in a good video online, right?
But risking shame and suffering for the gospel is reasonable, and Paul wants to show us this by being sure we know the glory of the gospel we are being called to proclaim. You see, now I believe that Timothy knew the gospel.
Of course he did. He didn't need a refresher course here, and of course many of us in the room might even just kind of partly check out when it comes to a description of the gospel because you're like, I know this.
I've been around for a while. I've been kicking it in the church. Why would I need to hear the gospel again? Why this reminder? This reminder comes in at the right time to motivate us to guard this glorious message by boldly proclaiming even at great personal risk.
In the gospel, remember that God has saved us, the text goes on to say. In this brief phrase, saved us, all our sin, the fires of eternal separation from God, our own predicament that couldn't be fixed by ourselves comes into focus.
God saved us, and in this salvation, it was God who called us to a holy life. This calling is showing the purpose of His saving work over us. He didn't save us because He was looking for something to do and He was bored.
He saved us to restore unto Himself a holy, set apart, a holy kind of people. And in verses 8 and 9, we see the three glorious movements of the gospel. Paul describes salvation, sanctification, and glorification, which results in immortality or eternal life.
He saved us from our sins at the cross, salvation. He has called us into a holy life. The phrase translated holy calling in the English standard version really ought to be probably translated more generically to holy life.
And this amounts to sanctification, that's what He's called us to. Called us in Christ to be a holy, sanctified people. That is, that the gospel is not just spoken and believed, but it's lived. Do you hear that?
It's not just something that you one time at a campfire believed in it and now you're okay. It is a living out of the gospel that we are called to. A lifelong process of living for Him. Sanctification.
Increasingly living like His Son, Jesus. And notice that the salvation and the call to a holy life is not by our works. How do we get into this thing? It's not by our works, but it's by His will. The text says His own purposes.
And it says because of His grace. Our salvation and our calling are not because we proved ourselves useful and impressed Him. Our salvation and calling are firmly rooted in His own mysterious purposes.
His will. And in His grace, that is His unearned, unmerited kindness. Church, you've got to stand in humility when you think about this. The thin line in our lives between saved and called and unsaved and useless are here shown to be nothing of your effort.
Therefore, of nothing to do with your pride or your arrogance or your ability. There's a thin line there. Nothing of our works and completely due to His will, His purposes, and His grace. You have been saved by Him or you haven't been saved at all.
And He gives a time stamp to melt our brains. He does that intentionally. He wants you to go, my brain can't process this timing. The time stamp on this. And it comes in to shock our sensibilities when He says, He tells us that the gift of grace in Christ Jesus was given to us when?
Before time began. Before time began. Now why even mention the timing? Why mention the timing? He didn't have to mention any timing. He didn't have to tell us anything that was going to challenge our thoughts about when it happened.
Because I want to tell you it happened at the cross. Or I want to tell you that it happened when you were at that campfire and God grabbed your heart and you said, I want to be yours and I want you to be mine.
And I want you to come in and rescue me. And I want it to be there, right? Like if I'm writing this in my flesh, I'm going to tell you it happened at the cross or it happened then. He says before time began.
Why in the world mention this? And I suggest to you it's meant to encourage us that God has been working for His glory through a redeemed people, saved and called before time began. Talking this way does three things.
First, it blows our minds regarding a God who is outside of time and space, amen? Second, it blows our minds that He would rescue and call people like us into His service before we had done either good or bad, He rescued us.
Third, it shows that Jesus was with God before the ages began. We were blessed in Jesus before the clock started moving. And that plan of God to save us and to call us to holy lives, the plan that was founded before the ages began, was realized in time and space.
Realized in time and space when Jesus Christ appeared in the flesh, arriving on the scene to enact the will and grace of God at His appearing. Verse 10, in which has now, now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus.
He came to destroy death, He came to bring life, opposite sides of the equation but both needing to be dealt with, to destroy life, to destroy death, to bring life and reveal immortality through this very good news we are being called to proclaim and guard.
Immortality, see that word? Immortality, to bring that to light. This is more than mere theory to Paul by the way, I just want to point out that you can talk gospel all the time, you can be up here in the clouds talking about what He has done for us in eternity past and all of this stuff, but man does this land when you realize where Paul's at in his life.
It lands hard when you realize that he is in prison, never to be set free. I mean I'm talking dungeon living rats gnawing at things and that kind of terrible, terrifying, I mean it's all kinds of writings about how terrible the prison of Mamertine was in Rome, that's where all who were to be executed in Rome were sent.
Peter probably spent some time here, most scholars believe. Paul and Peter both spent time in this prison awaiting their execution. That's where he is as of the writing of this letter. He's in a nasty Roman prison awaiting the executioner and he writes that our Savior Jesus has abolished death, brought life and unveiled immortality.
Do you think he said that kind of like in a scholarly tone? Do you think he kind of was like academic in his presentation.
And kind of like, well you know,.
He's going to eventually resolve the problem of death and he's going to eventually declare life. He is taking solace in his very words, I'm confident of that. This is the comfort to his own soul as he's about to go meet Jesus.
He's about to lose his head. I mean what we have here is a declaration but also an evidence that Paul is putting all of his eggs in one basket and maybe more to the point, he's quite likely about to put his head in that basket.
It is for this gospel that Paul served Jesus as a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. He's reflecting back on his life. A man who is nearing the end reflecting on his life. Sound familiar? That's what we do.
And he says it's for this very gospel. I'm not just telling you, Timothy, to make it central. It's been central in my life as well. I've been called to preach the gospel. I've been called as an apostle sent to bring the message of the gospel and a teacher to make clear in expressions of the gospel.
I'm an ambassador of Jesus Christ for the good news. I proclaim the good news and I seek to explain to anybody who will listen the significance of the good news. And in verse 12 he ties his suffering to that calling.
You see, Paul was on a trajectory in his life. At one point he had a plan. He was on a trajectory of fame and power and authority and social respect. Trained as a Jewish scholar under one of the most prominent rabbis of the time.
Rubbing shoulders we see in the book of Acts. Rubbing shoulders with the Sanhedrin, the ruling leadership of the entire Jewish nation. And he's there with them at the stoning of Stephen. There rubbing shoulders with them.
He's put in charge of guarding everybody's cloaks so that they could get free range of motion to throw rocks better at Stephen.
That's Paul.
Served as a special envoy of the Sanhedrin to eradicate the Christian faith. When Jesus broke into his plans for his own life with a plan of his own. And Jesus said, how about you stop cutting down my people and become one of them.
And how about I send you out with this message that many will hate. And how about you suffer in my name for many things for the cause of being my servant. And so suffer. Paul did. But in Paul's heart, the gospel has found such good soil that verse 12 amounts to his declaration that it is worth it all.
An older minister about to die for his faith speaking to a younger minister saying, but I'm not ashamed. I've suffered many things, but I'm not ashamed.
Why?
Because I know. I know. I know this is relational. This is not just some head knowledge. I know things about Jesus. I know the one in whom I have put my faith. This know is the sweet knowledge of Jesus Christ his Savior who had walked through many sufferings and hardships and pains with Paul.
Paul knew his Lord. Paul knew his Savior. Paul knew Jesus. And further, Paul was firmly convinced that Jesus was able to guard until that final day, the day of judgment, when it's all wrapped up and Jesus returns, until that final day, the very gospel that had been entrusted to him, to Paul.
By Paul's words, we can surmise about ourselves that God has also, at belief and trust, he has entrusted us with his gospel as well. And yet, God's got it. He entrusts it with us, but he's got it. He can guard it.
And Paul says, I'm firmly convinced that Jesus has got this. Paul has to tell Timothy that he has confidence in God because he would be foolish to allow Timothy to think, even for a moment, that his confidence is in men to keep it.
No, my confidence isn't in people's ability to keep the gospel going. I believe that we would be way off after 2 ,000 years of the telephone game if the preservation of the gospel was strictly in human hands.
If it was strictly in human hands, we would be out there talking about interplanetary beings. I don't know, we'd be way out there. So when he will say in a couple of verses that we are called to guard the gospel, and he enlists Timothy to guard the gospel, Paul will have already expressed in this verse a confidence that God will be the one to see it through to the end, so get busy guarding it.
To be a guardian of the gospel, we must know the gospel, and in knowing the gospel, we find the only hope given to humanity by which we can be saved, the only means to be called to a holy life and promised immortality, and that is worthy of our risk of shame and our risk of suffering.
I believe that the more firmly you understand and know the gospel by which you have been saved, the less you will be ashamed of it, and the more you will be willing to suffer for it. To guard the gospel, we must not be ashamed, we must be ready to suffer for it, we must know it, and we must follow the gospel as the pattern of sound words, verse 13.
The gospel is the revealed testimony of our Lord, it is the pattern of sound words given to us by faithful prophets and apostles, it is not something we discover on our own, it is not something we find hidden in our own hearts, it is the pattern of sound, healthy, firm words that Timothy received through the revelation of the Spirit from the apostle Paul.
We are told to follow that pattern that has been given to us, not a pattern to discover, not a pattern to improve upon, not a pattern to water down, not a pattern to alter and change. You see, we're going to be tempted to give all kinds of shortcuts here to the gospel, to reinvent the gospel as works of kindness, to reinvent the gospel as being a nice person, to pretend that we can proclaim the gospel and use words if necessary, which is impossible since the calling on us from this passage is to follow the pattern of sound words.
A lot can be gained in this passage by seeing the different phrases that are used for the gospel here. In this passage, the gospel is the testimony about our Lord, verse 8, God saving and calling us to holiness, verse 9, the abolition of death, verse 10, the unveiling of immortality, again, verse 10, the treasure entrusted to Paul, verse 12, the pattern of sound words, verse 13, the good, beautiful deposit entrusted to Timothy, verse 14.
But here in verse 13, as a pattern of sound words, the gospel is heard from Paul, and it comes in faith and love in Christ Jesus. More than facts to be believed, the gospel is a life-transforming message that draws a person into a life of faith and love in Jesus Christ.
Again, a lived-out message. Yes, you proclaim the gospel and you live the gospel, both. Not one or the other, both. Timothy and the church after him, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is being told that there's a pattern that must be followed in the words of the gospel.
A church is not free to take it or leave it when it comes to the good news of Jesus Christ. There's a pattern of healthy and sound words given to the church through the apostles that we must obey and keep and proclaim.
And this is what we are finally being called to in the last point, to guard the gospel, verse 14. I think a generic phrase for everything that's come before, by the power of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us, we are called to guard the good deposit entrusted to us.
How do we guard this gospel? By not being ashamed of it. By being ready to suffer for it. By knowing it well and by following it as the pattern of the church. The gospel is not optional. Evangelism is not some gift for pastors or evangelists or street preachers or missionaries.
The gospel is the lifeblood of the church. I can only think of one application that has many sub-points to this message this morning. Can you guess what that application is? Guard the gospel. And do this by knowing it well.
And in knowing it well, you will avoid being ashamed of it and you will be prepared to suffer for it. And you'll be ready to hold it close as the foundational pattern of sound words that brings to light eternal life to a dark and dying world.
We celebrate the gospel every week in our time of communion. The testimony about our Lord is that he was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life on our behalf, died as an intentional sacrifice for our sins.
He was truly dead and truly buried, but he truly arose on the third day victorious over sin and death. This is the good news. This is the pattern of sound words. This is good. This is the good and beautiful deposit entrusted to us so that we might pass it along, church, to others.
There is no other way of salvation. There is no other way to call people to a holy life. There is no other way for death to be destroyed and for eternal life to be given. And so I encourage us all this morning to come to the tables trusting in this glorious message of hope.
If Jesus is your Lord and your Savior and you're at peace with others here at Rechash Church, then I encourage you just as every week come to the tables to remember the glorious gospel. We have been entrusted with the remedy to the world's sickness.
We have been called to be guardians of the remedy. But fortunately, we also see Paul's confidence that this gospel will not go away. Paul was firmly convinced that God is able to guard the good until the good news, until that day, until that final day.
Are any of you in the room aware? This isn't in my notes, but it just came to my mind. Are any of you aware of the origin story of the Iditarod dog sled race? There was a town, I think it might have been Nome.
Somebody can correct me on that. I think it was Nome, Alaska. It had an outbreak of diphtheria. I thought you might have it.
Diphtheria.
And the remedy and the cure was miles and miles away. And so they basically hitched up these dog sleds in relay and relayed. How many miles?
You'll have it.
About 1 ,000 miles from the coastal city on into Nome to bring the remedy. And each one had to be entrusted with that remedy. And without that chain, without those generational... I mean, think about it in the gospel terms.
Without the generational chain of guardians of the gospel carrying it from one generation to the next generation, we wouldn't have it here in Madoan without that chain. Now, that chain is entrusted by Almighty God, but we have a part to play in it, amen?
He uses us. And what are we doing here in the 2020s for that race? Oh, I'm scared. I get it. I get it. Paul gets it. Scripture gets it. God gets it. Because he's telling you, don't be ashamed of it, and he's telling you, be ready and willing to suffer for it.
And we're kind of going like, yeah, but this is 2025 and my HR... I might get called into HR if I share the gospel.
Okay.
I'm not sure Paul is ready to give you a pass on that one. Now, I probably would in my flesh. I'm not joking. I'm just telling you, I might just go, oh, yeah, that's scary. I get it. I get it. But I'm a preacher and proclaimer of the truth of the word of God, and so I'm not going to let you off the hook.
I can't. I can't give you freedom to be...
That wasn't a good word.
To be weak. To be weak.
It wasn't a really bad word. Oh, my goodness, now you're thinking I was going to swear at you or something. It wasn't that bad, okay? It was just pansy or something like that. Yeah, I should have said it now that I evoked thoughts in your mind.
But I'm just saying, I'm not sure that I can just... Yeah, okay. Okay, I get it. And that's not over in comparison to what they're struggling with in India. That's not over and opposed to what they have to do in Riyadh to share their faith.
I'm talking about here and now.
This message speaks to you and your situation about proclaiming the truth and getting into the gospel. Are you getting it? It's about this passage that you're hearing with your ears is about you and your calling.
We've been entrusted with this remedy. And let's carry it to our sphere of influence here and be faithful in our leg of the journey. We are called to be guardians of the gospel even as we trust that God himself is working, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even through us to keep the gospel advancing.
Let's pray. Father, I ask for a motivation that my voice can't produce. The enthusiasm that you put in my heart can't get us there, but your spirit can. And I'm convinced that there are people sitting on the verge of eternity whose lives will be changed by people in this very room whose eternal destiny will be altered because of a faithful testimony to stretch out and to not be ashamed of the gospel and to proclaim it, that there are some represented by friendships and relationships and neighbors in this very room who do not yet know you that by the proclamation will believe and receive and that we might be used of you to that end.
I pray that you would help us to be faithful to our leg of the journey here in this generation to be guardians of your glorious truth, guardians of this beautiful gospel that we celebrate every week and come into these tables to remember his body broken for us so we take the cracker, his blood shed for us so we take that cup of juice, and we testify that we believe this.
Every Sunday we come together and stand in these lines.
And take communion.
We are testifying that Christ and his gospel is central. I pray that that would be true in the way that we live and in the proclamation of our voices. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.